


i fear no fate

by MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon)



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, fix-it baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 18:16:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21306440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_nerimon/pseuds/MissAtomicBomb
Summary: It didn’t mean anything because it can’t mean anything, because girls like her don’t marry farm boys.
Relationships: Diana Barry/Jerry Baynard
Comments: 15
Kudos: 185





	i fear no fate

**Author's Note:**

> y'all idk who that chick was in episode 7, but it was not diana barry

_It didn’t mean anything._

Diana thinks it over and over, like if she tells herself those words enough times they’ll be true. It didn’t mean anything because it can’t mean anything, because girls like her don’t marry farm boys.

_Well, clearly you’re not._

Another lie. She’s really racking them up. She hears her mother’s voice when she replays the fight with Anne, a perfect lady speaking words that feel heavy on her heart. She said all the right things, depending on who you ask.

Didn’t she?

* * *

Mother tells her to start packing for Paris. She neatly folds all her winter clothes, special dresses, favorite ribbons. She tucks her stories in under her muffs, fingers lingering over her own name scrawled next to Anne and Ruby’s. She feels a thousand years removed from the girl who used to sit in that hut under the stars and dream up impossible romances.

Impossible romance, she’s discovered, was much more fun to write about than to live.

The book goes under her blue overcoat. She’s read it twice since she stopped seeing him. It gets sadder with each time, the tragedy of longing for something unnatural. Forbidden. You can want something with your entire heart, but that doesn’t make it possible.

* * *

Anne comes down with a bad cold weeks before exams. Diana pretends not to notice when she misses three days of school in a row, even though it’s all she can do to stare at the empty seat. Gilbert asks her how Anne’s doing, and she doesn’t know how to tell him she hasn’t spoken to Anne in nearly a month.

Miss Stacy charges her with delivering homework, given the proximity of their houses. Diana assumes this is the only reason, as Miss Stacy surely isn’t obtuse enough to have missed the uncomfortable tension between the two girls during class. It’s hard not to notice when two people go from being inseparable to never speaking.

Still, she carries the books down the familiar path she and Anne used to walk a hundred times. She tries not to think about all they talked about, the rebellion Anne used to encourage. She tries not to think about Jerry’s hand bumping hers as they walked, the way he used to adjust his jacket every time he saw her coming, like he wanted to look his best.

She’s doing a terrible job of not thinking about any of those things when she reaches Green Gables. She’s so caught up in her thoughts she stumbles into the fence, banging her lunch pail on the wood to a resounding noise.

“Everything alright?” A face sticks its head out of the barn, peering at her in the afternoon sun.

It’s Jerry, because of course it is, because it wouldn’t be enough to just come face to face with one of the two people she betrayed tonight. His expression hardens when he sees her, another arrow to her gut.

“Y-Yes. I’m fine, thank you.”

He nods slightly, then turns back inside. Diana knows what she should do (go up to the house, leave Anne’s books with Miss Cuthbert, go home and never think of Green Gables again) but somebody, somewhere, has another idea for her.

She’s not sure how her legs manage to take her to the open barn door, it feels like she’s walking on ice, about to slip through at any moment. Jerry’s shoveling hay into a wheelbarrow, hat dipped over his head, hiding his face from her.

“I have schoolwork for Anne,” she announces to her uninterested audience.

Jerry nods towards the house, then ducks his head back over the wheelbarrow. She should follow his lead, cut the interaction as short as possible, but suddenly she can’t seem to move her feet. He glances back up at her frozen there, eyes darker than she remembers.

“You can leave it here,” he concedes, “I will bring it.”

She nods sharply, setting the books as lightly as she can down on the workbench.

“That is my job,” she hears him mumble down into the hay, “I am just the help.”

“Jerry-“ His name escapes her mouth before she can stop herself, mimicking all the nights she laid awake thinking of this exact scenario and wishing, desperately, she knew how to make things better.

“Miss Barry,” he stands up straight, his full height towering over her, making her feel even smaller. She remembers how it used to send a thrill through her, pulling at her stomach in a way she’d never known before.

“Do you need something else?”

_Yes. I need to explain everything._

“I-“

Jerry raises an eyebrow. He is terribly handsome, Diana thinks. He’s many other things, too, and she wish she had the courage or the French vocabulary to express all of them.

“I’m sorry,” it comes out a whisper, no one but the two of them and the horses to hear.

He just blinks back at her with those dark eyes, and suddenly it’s like a dam breaking inside of her, her mouth opening before she can even process, before her brain scolds her it’s unladylike, don’t say these things, don’t feel them.

“I’m sorry, Jerry. I’m so, _so_ sorry. I’m sorry for Anne, too. I never- I didn’t- I shouldn’t have said any of those things. I didn’t mean them, any of them. I mean, I did like kissing you. But I didn’t _just_ like that, I liked you. And I love Anne, and I’ve ruined it and I’m just so, so sorry.”

Jerry takes a minute to absorb her outburst, eyebrows knitting together like he’s deep in thought. She wonders if she should just keep repeating the apology, maybe she’ll actually deserve a conversation if she admits how the guilt keeps her up at night.

“You were ashamed of me,” he states plainly, voice flat like he’s trying to control it.

“_No_! No, I-“

“You didn’t even tell Anne. You didn’t want anyone to know.”

“No one could know, but not because of you,” Diana wants to take his hand, to feel the callouses on his fingers, the tiny scars on the palm. “It’s my family, they would never-“

“I was a distraction. Before you go away to become somebody’s perfect wife. Yes?” He doesn’t sound angry, only tired. Like he’s told himself this so often it’s become fact for him.

“No. I promise, it wasn’t that at all.”

“I know I don’t go to school, or understand books the way you do. But I am not stupid, Diana.” It’s the first time he’s said her name, and the butterflies still burst in her chest.

“No,” her voice cracks as she says the word, vision blurring even as she tries so hard to will the tears away. “You’re not stupid.”

Jerry half looks like he wants to cry himself, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. “Then why would you treat me like that?” He asks the question to the ground, and Diana feels the sting right in her gut.

She doesn’t know how to tell him she hears her mother’s voice every time she sees his face, hissing in her ear about that _horrible family_. How she was raised from the age of two to understand her place in the world was above everyone else, and it was her responsibility as a woman to marry well for her family’s sake. That her only purpose was to raise the Barry name even higher, to become a quiet, respectable wife who throws soirees and donates to charity and does nothing else with her life, nothing of importance, nothing that ever makes her feel alive.

Jerry makes her feel alive. The world is wide and he lives in an entirely different world, a place she never knew existed until she saw it that night at his family’s home.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I was horrid to you. And to Anne. I’m not- That’s not who I want to be.”

Jerry looks back up at her, chewing on his bottom lip.

“I’m tired of putting my family first. I’m always so scared of what they want that I don’t- I don’t listen to what I want.”

He shoves a hand in his pocket, hunching his shoulders so he loses an inch, like he’s almost trying to hide away from what’s going to come next.

“What do you want?” He asks gently, and Diana knows the answer before he even finishes asking.

"You."

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write her making up with anne as well but maybe that will have to be part two. diana b get your business together i ain't got time for this!


End file.
